


I know I'm a wolf

by DisposablePaperCup



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Feels, Mild Gore, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, One Shot, Self-Hatred, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26148511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisposablePaperCup/pseuds/DisposablePaperCup
Summary: He lets anger guide his actions, snapping and biting like a dog kept on a chain and he knows that if they hate him they’ll never die for him. They’ll be safe as long as they don’t love him. Because ‘for him’ means pain. ‘For him’ means giving up things they want or need or love. It means loss and guilt and tears and sacrifice and mourning.And they’ve mourned enough for him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 112





	I know I'm a wolf

Five was just a kid when he left. Immortalized at thirteen by the portrait over the mantle - all but forgotten by his father, mourned by his family. And then time and space threw him out of it’s swirling blue depths and into a world made of ash and decay and the decomposing memorials of the people that once lived in it. He hardly had it in him to worry about anything but getting _home_. The bodies were irrelevant; he’d see his family alive soon enough. 

Then ‘soon’ blurred into ‘someday’ and ‘someday’ smeared into ‘ _never_ ’. 

He was going to die there, surrounded on all sides by the debris of a burning world and he would never be able to see his family again. He learned the meaning of regret then - the harsh, gritty version of the word that digs at your gut and sends your head buzzing with guilt and fear and _loss_.

And soon not even Dolores - sweet, beautiful, impossibly kind, even when he didn’t deserve it - could stop his downward spiral. The Handler came and went, the first person he’d seen in _decades_ and yet she appeared as plastic and fake as the glossy magazines he’d seen Allison’s face on - before they were burned to a symbolic crisp.

He accepted her deal, of course. As much as he loathed her sickly sweet words and the predator’s gleam in her eyes he couldn’t _bear_ having freedom - having his _family_ \- dangled in front of his face only to reject his chance. 

So he became a killer. A murderer. A terrified child turned broken man turned horrific _monster_. He dealt out the same brand of death and decay he’d become so terribly familiar with in the world of ash and dust and nothing. He’d ripped families apart, pointed bloody fingers at the innocent, sliced the throats of young and old and killed and killed and _killed_.

He wasn’t sure his family would see anything but the _monster_ if he ever came home to them. 

And when he finally did - when he _finally_ saw his family’s lungs breathing and their hearts beating and all flesh and bone and _smiles_ \- Five felt like an imposter. A fraud. A wolf in sheep’s clothing walking around wearing the face of a _child_. The notion was almost enough to make him laugh. Children were innocent, kind, and loyal to a fault, only corrupted by the world that taught them right from wrong. Five was far from a child.

His number turned name had been warped into something unrecognizable before he reunited the people he called ‘family’. But he wasn’t ‘Five’ anymore. He hadn’t been ‘Five’ for decades.

He was still Five, in a sense. But this new Five was a killer, hardened and made brittle by decades of dust and ash and the crimson ever staining his hands. This Five could never wash it away - it cut deeply into his skin, spiraling along with his fingerprints and sinking as deep as his bones.

He would never tell his family that, of course, because he was sure that all they would see would be the monster wearing their brother’s face. 

On the second day of his time home, seven days before the world would become nothing but ash and smoke and death, Five realized something. His family loves him. And that is a problem.

He’s learned a few things about love - he’s had four decades to contemplate the concept. And he knows that he loves his family. He sliced and strangled and shot and stabbed and _slaughtered_ because he loved them. He became a _monster_ all for love. 

And even if he doesn’t regret a thing, because it was all worth it in the end, he would _die_ before he lets his family become monsters for _him_. 

So he lets anger guide his actions, snapping and biting like a dog kept on a chain and he knows that if they hate him they’ll never die for him. They’ll be safe as long as they don’t love him. Because ‘for him’ means pain. ‘For him’ means giving up things they want or need or love. It means loss and guilt and tears and sacrifices and _mourning_. 

And they’ve mourned enough for him.

But through all the spiteful words he flings their way - like Diego flings his blades or Luther crushes with his fists or Allison cuts with her voice or Klaus sees the tax on someone’s soul or Ben ripped and broke and tore people into bloody pieces - they still refuse to hate him. 

Yes, they might say harsh things, but there’s no true malice behind them. They might look at him with resentment but there’s always a sickening twist of _pity_ in their eyes. Five does not need pity. He does not need the upturned brows and wet eyes and the muttered sympathies of _have you gotten rest_ or _are you okay_ or _we’re here for you_.

He does not need _pity_. 

Because even when he pushes their buttons like he’s arming a bomb they _still_ do not go off. Soon he can’t find it in himself to get them to hate him anymore. He still hides behind his pride and scorn and lashes out when they show concern, but in the end, he can’t bring himself to drive one final barrier between them.

The days fly by in a hazy blur of blood and pain and hurt and _try-try-try_ and _fail_. 

And then the moon - that Five had so dearly wished he could see among the ash that never settled enough to see the sky - was broken. Cracked and shattered and finally, it all came crashing in on him in a horrible wave of _failure_.

He remembers what it was like to feel that same bone-deep terror for the first time. When the glassy eyes of his family stared up with the arrival of his failure - forever scarred against his ribs. He couldn’t do it again. Not _again_. 

And if he dies? Well. So be it. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in a writing funk and have binged TUA and the first season of Stranger Things so I'm just kinda floating in limbo right now also online school is a bitch did I mention that uh anyway have this and then I'm probably gonna disappear for a month or something so uh
> 
> the title is from 'I know I'm a wolf' by Young Heretics cause why not I'm saving the good titles for other stuff
> 
> uh yeah so um bye


End file.
